


By Invitation Only

by CloudAtlas



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Artists, Blind Date, Comics Writers and Artists, Dare, F/M, Writers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-20 21:25:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6025615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudAtlas/pseuds/CloudAtlas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>YOU ARE INVITED TO A SEDUCTION<br/>Please come to dinner on Friday Night.<br/>The Drunken Monkey, 7.30.<br/>Wear the kind of clothes you would like to be seduced in.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Based on <a href="http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/18932682858/as-requested-by-too-many-people-making-the-last">Neil Gaiman's advice on how to seduce a writer</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Invitation Only

**Author's Note:**

> Written for **inkvoices** prompt on the be_compromised Valentines Mini Promptathon. Beta'd by the wonderful **geckoholic**.

YOU ARE INVITED TO A SEDUCTION reads the invitation stuffed into Clint’s letterbox.

The writing is fancy and printed on heavy card – ‘good stuff’ as Steve would call it, ‘heavy gsm’. It’s the kind of thing Clint would associate with artists or people who want to look fancier than they are. Which confuses Clint because, while he knows a fair few artists he knows no one with delusions of grandeur, and he can’t think of any of his arty friends who would want to seduce him, or who would send him an invitation stating that intent.

He flips it over to see if there’s any more clues as to the invitation’s origin but the back reveals nothing more than; ‘Please come to dinner on Friday Night. The Drunken Monkey, 7.30. Wear the kind of clothes you would like to be seduced in.’

No name, nothing.

“I’ve just got,” he says as soon as the call to Kate goes through, “the weirdest post.”

“Hello to you too,” Kate says, tinny and muffled through the phone speaker. “It’s not something you drunk bought form eBay again, is it?”

“No,” he says, sifting through the various files on his laptop to find the script that’s due today. Writing multiple comics at the same time is good for his bank balance, but not for much else. “It’s an invitation.”

“To anything good?”

“A seduction.”

On the other end of the phone, there’s the kind of pause that indicates Kate is gearing up to laugh at him and he takes the moment to search through his hard drive for a particular script; Mombasa #31. He is so, so proud that he was tapped by Steve and Bucky to guest write for this comic because _it is amazing_.

“Oh Clint,” she says delighted and, _yup,_ there’s the laughter. “Only you.”

“Shut up,” he grouses half-heartedly. He knew this was going to happen when he rang Kate. It’s always what happens when he rings Kate. She’s a terrible person. He’s not sure why he’s still friends with her, really.

“Who’s it from?” she asks, still giggling.

“No idea,” he says, not really paying her full attention. He attaches the Mombasa #31 script the email he owes Bucky and hits send before he can fiddle with it anymore. “It’s not signed or anything.”

He then opens up the files for Seven Bells #5 and Wonder Woman #14 and frowns at the screen.

“Maybe you’ve got a secret admirer,” Kate says.

There’s something off about her voice, but Clint is too busy remembering the utter cul-de-sac he’s written himself into last night to pay much attention to it.

“Mmm, maybe,” he says, his mind no longer on weird invitations and instead wandering around Themyscira with Wonder Woman and her current maybe-girlfriend. “Hey, if Diana admits to Helene how she feels about her and Helene is all happy and accepting and shit, what do I do about Eli? Because Eli thought he had a chance and Diana sort of implied he did, but if Helene’s accepts her advances and Diana doesn’t want to hurt Eli’s feelings – ”

“Threesomes are always the answer,” Kate butts in. “Also, quit thinking about fictional characters for a second and act interested in the fact that you have someone who likes you enough to invite you to a seduction.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t put a polyamorous relationship in a DC comic,” he says. “The editors would flip their shit. And they’re probably a crazy person,” he continues, being pretty reasonable all told. “Who _invites_ people to seductions?”

Clint types a few sentences of Wonder Woman before sighing and clicking over to Seven Bells #5 instead.

“People who are trying to seduce completely oblivious people,” Kate says firmly.

“I’m not oblivious,” Clint says, vaguely. “I don’t know anyone who’s trying to seduce me.”

“That’s almost the text-book example of oblivious, “ Kate points out. “Which is proved by the fact that you’ve literally just been given a _fucking invitation_.”

“Yeah, by a _crazy person_.”

Clint _hears_ Kate shrug. “Eh, I dunno. I think you should go, just to see.”

“Yeah, and get knifed.”

“Don’t be stupid, you’re not all that. No one wants to knife you.”

“Why are you taking this seriously?” He roots through the stuff on his desk, looking for the print out he did yesterday on Aboriginal Australian dream-walking – he knows he put it somewhere here and he needs it for this scene.

“ _Because_ ,” she says, like that’s a fucking answer. “Just _go_.”

“You’re not helping, Kate,” Clint says, frowning at where the invitation is sat on top of a stack of Ex Machina comics. And his print outs. Useful.

“Well, if all you’re going to do is whine, I have better shit to be getting on with.”

“I’m not _whining_ – ” Clint starts, but Kate cuts in with a very firm, “Goodbye, Clint,” and hangs up on him.

Clint stares at his phone for a moment, completely baffled, before rolling his eyes at his friend’s ridiculousness and turning back to Seven Bells and his dream-walking info. Ziko is currently trapped in Elia’s dream, and while Clint knows she has to get out soon, there’s something missing. Elia’s dream is too – linear, and Ziko needs to be more turned around before she can escape. Plus Syvia needs to turn up and Kalib needs to threaten Elia’s body in the real world.

_Urgh_. Why the hell did he think up such a complicated premise?

Just as he’s berating himself for his stupid, complicated ideas, his laptop makes the weird bubbly sound that indicates someone is Skyping him and Clint clicks through to find Natasha on the other end.

Natasha is the artist on Seven Bells. He tapped her for this project because the dreamy work she did for Red Room #3 almost made him cry. And then, when he found her Sharp Teeth series and her book Girls Who Dance at the Edge of Destruction, he immediately rang up his agent Sam and demanded contact details and any information that could convince her to work with him.

“Hi,” she says smiling. “I have thumbnails and colour ideas for #4.”

Apparently his story was good enough to convince her, which Clint is eternally grateful for because otherwise there was a good change she’d get coerced into working for Tony Stark again, and while Tony was an amazing writer, her art just _didn’t fit_. Or at least, that’s what Clint thinks.

So Clint puts the weird invitation out of his mind and spends the rest of his day chatting to Natasha about colours and somehow – don’t ask him how he managed it because he has no idea – getting Ziko out of Elia’s dream and back to the real world.

 

Clint doesn’t really think of the invitation for the rest of the week. He finishes Seven Bells #5 and sends it to Natasha, finishes Wonder Woman #14 and sends it to Steve and he manages fifteen pages of his guest issue of The Language of the Mountains is Rain before Kate brings it up again.

“So are you going?” Kate asks on Thursday morning, after snooping through Clint’s weekly comics haul like usual.

“To what?” he replies, vaguely. Eiji is proving stubborn and earthquake ravaged Tokyo is really fucking depressing. Writing is _hard_.

“Your seduction.”

Something suddenly occurs to Clint and he pulls himself out of his fictional Japan to squint at Kate from across the room. “You know something I don’t.”

“I know many things you don’t,” Kate says, flipping through his signed copy of V for Vendetta. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“About this invitation.”

Kate rolls her eyes. “Now you twig. I swear, you spend so much time in fictional worlds it’s a wonder you remember to feed yourself.”

“ _Katie_ ,” he says warningly.

“ _Clinton_ ,” she imitates back.

“No really.” He’s starting to get annoyed. A crazy person sends him an ‘invitation to a seduction’ and Kate reveals she knows said crazy person and honestly, what the fuck is going on?

“Just go,” she says eventually. “I promise you won’t regret it.”

Clint knows that he’s hopeless when it comes to arguing with Kate. She’s like an annoying younger sister. He should really just stop.

“Yeah right,” he replies, because he never learns. “I really don’t trust you.”

“Oh for fucks sake, Barton,” Kate exclaims. “Go to the fucking restaurant! I promise you’ll meet someone there who really, really wants to sit on your dick!”

“How the fuck do you know that?”

“Because I’ve got drunk with them!”

“Them?”

“I’m not giving you pronouns, Barton,” she says, crossing her arms. “You’ll have to find out for yourself.”

“So it’s a guy?”

“Did I say that? No, I did not. Go to the fucking restaurant. You like The Drunken Monkey, you’ll like the person there. I’ll turn up at six and force you out of the house if I have to.”

And with that as a parting shot, Kate steals his copy of V for Vendetta and leaves.

 

There’s a file in his emails called DONE AND DONE, and Clint opens it to find that Natasha's art for Seven Bells #4 is even more breath-taking than her stuff for #3. He flails at his desk for a moment before praying to anyone listening that Natasha is online and clicking her contact image on Skype.

“Oh my God,” he says breathlessly as soon as her face appears on his screen. “That’s like – oh my God, Natasha. It’s the most fucking perfect thing. The blues! And Ziko’s expression on page fifteen. Jesus Christ. You’re the most fucking amazing artist. I could kiss you.”

Natasha’s grin widens the longer he babbles and a faint blush sits high on her cheekbones.

“I dunno man,” she says smiling. “I think it’s all down to the story.”

Clint waves away her praise. “No one gives a flying fuck about the story. I don’t even know what’s going on. Shit. I need a print of page three, okay? You gotta print me a copy and sign it and I’ll sleep with it under my pillow. Jesus Christ.”

On the screen, Clint can see Natasha chewing on her lip in an effort not to smile any harder than she already is. It’s a habit Clint’s noticed in her, though in his defence, her mouth is very noticeable.

“I’m going to be in your neck of the woods on Saturday,” she says eventually. “I can give it to you then if you want.”

“Yeah?” Clint says delighted, before registering the rest of her sentence. “Wait, you’re coming to Brooklyn? How come?”

Natasha laughs like everything is ridiculous. It’s kind of wonderful and Clint is once again struck by the fact that Natasha is exceptionally beautiful. He’s fairly sure she has a boyfriend though. Well, he assumes she does. Why wouldn’t she?

“Oh, it’s sort of… aspirational, though I’m probably going to meet up with Steve too and go to Uncommon Books. See if they have the rare variant of Bitch Planet that I want.”

“You know,” he says, “you could always just email them. They’d be happy to keep one for you. Or I can pop in for you. I go in every fucking week, I can grab you whatever.”

Natasha smiles at him.

“Thanks, Clint. But it’s more fun when you find it yourself, you know?”

Clint shrugs. He’s all for emailing and getting people to reserve him stuff. It’s how he has all the variants for Arcadia and Saga. What good is it being a (reasonably famous) comics writer if you can’t name drop yourself occasionally?

“Okay, whatever. You do you, I guess. But sure, I can meet you. Saturday morning okay? I’m meeting Sam in the afternoon. There’s a fancy café place on the posher end of Quincey I want to try. The Barn. Is eleven alright with you?”

Natasha nods, but there’s something teasing to her expression that gives Clint the impression that she’s making fun of him.

“Yeah, eleven is good.”

 

Kate barges into Clint’s apartment at half six on Friday night, immediately going to his wardrobe and yanking out jeans, shirts, jackets and shoes before noticing that Clint is still in sweatpants and a ratty t-shirt that’s seen better days.

“Shower,” she says – commands really – propelling him into the bathroom unceremoniously.

“I’m not going.”

“The hell you aren’t,” she says, slamming the door in his face.

“Shower and change!” she yells through the wood. “Don’t make me do it for you!”

The door opens briefly so she can chuck in some clean boxer-briefs and then snaps closed again.

Clint gets into the shower. The path of least resistance and all that.

When he gets out of the shower again, Kate has laid clothes out for him on his bed.

“Grey Henley,” she says, pointing, “ _these_ jeans and no other, this jacket. I will allow you Chuck’s if they’re not the ratty ones. And then sit the fuck down so I can make your hair presentable.”

“Why the hell – ?”

“If it makes you feel better, think of this as a blind date set up by me that I know you’ll enjoy.”

Clint glares at her as he pulls the Henley on. “I can still say – ”

“That is also a dare,” Kate says firmly and, _well_.

Clint glares at her and Kate stares impassively back. Clint’s inability to turn down dares is secondary only to Steve Rogers. Add alcohol into the mix and terrible things are likely to happen. Clint really hopes this date isn’t with Steve, though he’s sure Kate is aware that Clint sees Steve as a one night stand sort of guy; more ‘wham bam thank you ma’am’  than seduction worthy.

Clint should not have opinions on what kind of fuck Steve Rogers would be, but Bucky once mentioned something about Steve on a night out – Clint can’t even remember what it was now – and he’s held this opinion of him ever since.

That’s weird, right? Clint feels like that might be considered weird.

“Get _dressed,_ Clint,” Kate snaps, pulling Clint back into the present. “You’re going to be late.”

Once Clint is dressed and perfumed to Kate’s satisfaction, she all but frogmarches him into a taxi and to the entrance of The Drunken Monkey before giving him a critical once over and pushing him through the door with the parting shot of, “just say your name, they’re expecting you.”

Clint looks around the room, trying to see if there’s anyone that immediately jumps out as the kind of person who’d send a comics writer a ‘seduction invitation’, but no one stands out. There’s just the usual crowd of dates and families. So he gives his name to the waitress at the door and is let to a little table at the back with a lit candle, a bottle of wine waiting, and…

“Natasha?”

Natasha smiles at him and stands up. She’s wearing a strapless dress in a lush green, very red lipstick and a smirk that doesn’t quiet hide her relief.

“I see you got my invitation,” she says, kissing him on the cheek.

“You – what – huh?”

She smiles wider. “You’re sort of useless, you know? I’ve been flirting with you since I met you at the Image Creators dinner thing six months ago, but you’re just oblivious. I could probably have worn a corset with your name written across my breasts and you would have thought I meant someone else.”

“I – ”

The combination of Natasha, strapless dresses and the word ‘breasts’ doesn’t allow for higher brain functions in Clint’s world.

Clint watches Natasha's gaze flick over his face, before sweeping down to take in his outfit. “You look good, Barton.”

“Kate,” Clint says stupidly, “said you want to sit on my dick.”

Natasha bursts out laughing as one of the waiters gives Clint a scandalised look.

“Well, I want food first,” she says, grinning. “But even before that, I want to – ”

And then she leans in and kisses him soundly. It takes a moment for Clint to catch up but he gets with the programme eventually.

“A very famous writer,” she says, pulling away only enough to get the words out, “once said that writers tend to be really good at the inside of their own heads but less good at the stuff going on outside, and that the best way to get their attention is invitations and kisses. That way they know they’re being seduced.”

She kisses him again, longer and dirtier and _Christ_ , he understands now why she got this corner table.

“Do you feel seduced, Clint Barton?” she asks, low and hot against his mouth.

“I dunno,” Clint manages, slightly breathless. “I think I might need steak – and have you tried the tiramisu here? It’s amazing. Steak, that and kisses. _Lots_ more kisses.”


End file.
